Shootout at Wadala | Bollywood Crime Thriller Fiction | Movie Reviews

There is a successful series of films Bollywood produced in the Crime Thriller section which are impressed by some of the real incidents revolved around the under-world. Of course, the stuff is then mixed with fiction to give cinematic experience. There are a number of such films liked by the people. The recent most in the list is – Shootout At Wadala – which is declared a commercial hit.

The film is about Manohar Arjun Surve aka Manya and his gang based on the incidents mentioned in Jyotirmoy Dey (J Dey)’s books about underworld and S. Hussain Zaidi’s crime thriller fiction – Dongri to Dubai.

We are not going to discuss the authenticity of the incidents mentioned in the film as it is mixed with fictional stuff, but simply trying to evaluate as a crime thriller movie and its entertainment quotient.

Manohar Arjun Surve is a straight forward and brilliant college student whose goals are pretty clear. He don’t want to be associated by anything wrong, want to study hard, get a fine job and get settled in a normal, peaceful life with his girlfriend Vidya Joshi. He was so determined for his target that during the exam he even doesn’t show answers of the question to Vidya as well!

But life is not always as straight forward as one can predict. One day when he took Vidya to get her meet with his mother, his elder brother Bhargav came there to meet. When they were having conversation Bhargav was attacked by some of the goons due to old rivalry (the goon belongs to Bhaskar). Manohar kept himself away from the fight, but when Bhargav’s life is in danger, he has to save him. Bhargav during the fight kills one of the attacker.

The results of the exam are out and Manohar was very keen to see his, as he knew that he would have scored really high. But before he can get his results, he was captured by police inspector Ambrolkar. The inspector abused him and beat him in the college campus itself and framed him in the charge of killing. In jail, Bhargav was killed by a prisoner hired by Bhaskar but Manohar was saved by a mate named Sheikh Munir. However Munir informs him that it is only a month left for Manohar, as after coming back from the isolation the prisoner (Potya) will kill Manohar as he was contracted for the same. Manohar decides to fight back and get ready for the sme in the time of one month available to him. Munir suggests him to get trained for the fighting from Veera (another prison inmate). Manohar gets ready and the fight between him and Potya, he kills Potya.

This is the starting of Manohar’s transformation to Manya Surve who later did a lot of illegal works including bank loot, extortion, killing and other crimes.

In Mumbai there was the time when underworld gangs of Mastan were almost ruling. The goons of the gangs does the wrong things and police was unable to act due to the boundary of rules & regulations. There are some genuine officers in the police force like ACP Afaaque Baaghran who want to overcome the situation. There are some officers who are ready to play games and do the needful like inspector Bhinde. There are officers like Raja Ambat who can support them without doubt in any tough situation.

The rest of the film shows the incidents which made all these characters to cross path with each other, and importantly with Haksar brothers (Zubair and Imtiaz). The series of incidents leads to the first police encounter the Mumbai police have operated officially, which happened at the Ambedkar College, Wadala, Mumbai.

As Manohar was a noted body builder, John Abraham is casted for the role and he does justice to the same. The physique of John is well toned and there is nothing unknown to write about it, but it is his acting which adds power to his performance. However if he could work more on his voice (like Sunny Deol) his performance could have been even better in the scenes demand some shouting and anger. Manoj Bajpai and Sonu Sood are first rate in the roles they play. It is Anil Kapoor who performed well and look fitter, he worked on his body especially athletically, as he has to do some such scenes. Ronit Roy supports well and so do Mahesh Manjarekar. Kangana needs to work on her dialog delivery to look convincing. Tushar (or as he writes – Tusshar) acts in some scenes well, but not looking convincing as a goon. Raju Kher acts well. Aarif is convincing. In the item songs, Laila is popular, rest of the two songs doesn’t create the impact. The action scenes are filmed well. The director kept himself in control from showing more criminal activities by Manohar, but shows his changing persona and character transformation very well. Especially when he abuses Vidya, we see how much he is changed. And he still has affection for her and he was trapped on the bases of the same. It shows the strong screenplay and writing, which is done by keeping human psychology in mind. The dialogs are effective. Though one must note that they contains lot of abusive words too.

Overall a film with emotional quotient, overall good performances, violence, some flows in story, skin show, intelligent dialogs with abusive words at various places; makes it a choice to watch for Adult people only.